It’s Snark Week…Check Your Local Listings

Am I the only Mom who is on Week 2 of Back to School and already in disbelief that it’s “same stuff, different school year” ??

The classics are back!

“You can’t wear those postage-stamp shorts!”

“Why? I don’t have anything else!”

“Maybe if you tried bringing in your laundry more than once per Leap Year, you would!”

Ye Olde band instrument. Practice twice on the weekends. Get a signed slip for the next week’s lesson. All good.

“Mom can I practice now?”

“No, your baby sister is in bed now. Your saxophone is too loud and you should have practiced first thing when you got home.”

Exchange of words too long and boring to print here. Blah Blah Blah…All NOT good.

And in the absence of her two older siblings, Little Bee is now lashing out at the cashier at Target or the friend I see in passing at the grocery store. They get her new snarly look and some snappish two-year old comment and a wagging finger point.

There’s always tomorrow’s cup of coffee and the promise of 10 minutes to breathe and look at a magazine or catch up on some meaningless celebrity nonsense from the Today Show.

But as past experience proves…I have been re-warming that cup of coffee for the last week.

I still never get to my target while it’s hot! Grrrrrr…

© Jennifer Scheidt and Titanimom, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Jennifer Scheidt and Titanimom with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Get Me a Technology Transplant, STAT!

I have become the old, out-of-touch Mom. It’s official. Even my siblings are calling me out. I am locked in to a contract with a cell phone company until March. I am a dinosaur in the cell phone world. Who stays with their cell phone provider for eleven years? Apparently this girl!

The first day of school rolls around and amid hundreds of Facebook posts you won’t find my kids. Nope, their Mom does not get 4G service in our town. Thus no instantaneous posts touting the excitement, fun and fashion of the first day of school. Bad Mom.

No less than fourteen texts came in to my phone that morning while having coffee with friends that included pictures of my niece and nephew in all of their first day of school glory, comments from my siblings and Mom. Digs at me. How old-school I am. Lots of cyberspace chuckles were had at my expense.

Being passed around our table at the coffee shop were iPhones, iPads and a rather fancy uploading device to immediately transfer pictures from phone to tablet. I had nothing to share. Old fashioned digital camera for me. Gasp! The pictures are still locked in my camera and have yet to see the light of day. Please, don’t alert the technology authorities.

Rewind a few days before this, while driving I heard this comment out of the mouth of my oldest: “You automatically get a banana vacuum.” Excuse me?! What planet are we on? Apparently this sentence does actually exist and makes sense to a kid playing Minion Rush, a video game based off of the movie Despicable Me.

A few minutes later was heard: “The Beijing police just came out of the sky and got me!” Really. This revelation is brought to us by the game Subway Surfer.

These kids today…

Can you just see the little minions laughing at me?

Just Call Me “Captain No Fun”

Who me? In the span of two weeks we went to the State Fair, Six Flags amusement park, the art museum (the kid portion of it), a children’s fest (with freebies, snow cones and giveaways galore), an outdoor concert, the zoo (twice), and a friend’s cottage for two days (five hours of which was spent tubing off the back of a pontoon boat.)

Yes, I must have earned my moniker.

“Mom, can we buy something in the gift shop?” “No”.

“Can we get something from the cafe?” “No, we packed a lunch.”

“Do you have money to buy this (some toy set at eye level to entice my son)?” “No, you already have several of those at home.”

“I want (insert 27 items here) from the mall. Can we go?” “Not today.”

Yep, Captain No Fun is on the scene and ready to strike.

We made a list before the summer started of the things we wanted to do. It was my attempt to ensure that Techno and Twinkle got ample time to do big kid things while I knew our anchor, Little Bee, would possibly keep us from enjoying a few of the things we might have tried to accomplish if she were a little older.

Periodically I checked the list to ensure we made progress and filled our summer with what they wanted to do. It gave me great pleasure to see that we checked off a lot of activities and added a few surprises too.

Why did some days feel like the point was missed? The two days it took to pack and plan and prepare were worth it but was the bickering and fighting that ensued the reward?

Did they remember the good time or did they focus on the fact that they couldn’t walk away with the commemorative cup of lemonade retailing for $10?

Looking back on the summer I love the memories we made and relish the special time we enjoyed together. It does not elude me that there will never be another summer that I have a 1, 9 and 11-year old. Ever.

As the start of school looms next week, I have been asked many times if I am ready for them to go back. This is the first summer in a few that I dread it just a little. They have been such a HUGE help with Bee this summer. We were settled in to a new normal. And now it will be changing yet again. She is walking now…FAST. And she is very curious. Captain No Fun is just getting warmed up. Look out, Little Bee.